We stayed at the Animal Kingdom Lodge – Jambo House for this trip. I always enjoy this view from our balcony!

Because RunDisney races start so early in the morning, 5:30 AM, it was again an early night on Saturday night as well. However, this was no ordinary half marathon for me. I was not running for time, but for pictures! In the end, it will have been my slowest half marathon, but my most fun, because I went overload on Star Wars character stops!

For this race, I try to dress up in costume as a Star Wars character. Last year I ran as a storm trooper, and this year I went with Boba Fett, the Bounty Hunter. So, here is flat Boba Fett. We got the Boba Fett hat from the Disney Store. The Boba Fett running shirt off Amazon. The arm sleeves are volleyball sleeves which my wife dyed burgundy and drew all the weapons on. The knee braces were dyed yellow to match Boba Fett’s knee plates. It was finally topped off with my grey shorts, and Orange/Black Hokas (which do not match or go with the costume in the least).

The alarm clock went off at 3 AM on Sunday morning, and by 3:30 AM Boba Fett was ready for the hunt and heading toward the bus at the resort.

The crowds were much bigger for the half marathon than for the 10K the day prior.

Because we had all got the pre- & post race character pictures done at the 10K, we did not spend any time waiting in character lines. So we just found some pavement in sat, relaxed, and socialized.

At about 5:00 AM we started making our way to the porta-potties & corrals. We were all spread out for this race. Becky was in Corral A, I was in Corral B, and Matt & Kira were in Corral E. So we all did our goodbyes and ducked into our respective corrals.

Can you say PR? At Disney??? That is right. On April 22nd, as a part of the RunDisney Star Wars Dark Side Challenge, I ran the 10K, with the half marathon to follow the next day (separate recap later). Because I do not run 10K events too often, I wanted to push my efforts and try and break my previous best of 55:44 at this distance back in 2012. Mission accomplished. I ran a 51:57 on my way to a new PR!

Well I started the post at the end, so now I will back track a little and review the race. First, it is Disney & it is Star Wars themed, so that makes it all great!

We stayed at the Animal Kingdom Lodge – Jambo House for this trip. I always enjoy this view from our balcony!

Because Disney races start so early in the morning, 5:30 AM, it was an early night Friday night. With all the gear ready, off to sleep I “tried”…

The alarm clock woke me at 3:00 AM, and I was on the bus to the race by 3:30 AM. Upon arrival at the Magic Kingdom Parking Lot (aka Transportation & Ticket Center) there were people everywhere. Which was weird at 4:00 AM, but this is RunDisney!

I met up with my running buddies, Matt, Kira, & Becky.

After we met up, we decided to jump in the shortest character line that was available, and luckily it was Boba Fett. You will learn more on this choice throughout this and the half marathon post to come. The characters available were Boba Fett, Captain Phasma, Darth Vader, Jabba the Hutt, & Kylo Ren. We caught pictures with the rest of them at the finish area. Becky waited for a little while for us, but it took almost an hour just to see Boba Fett, so she headed to the corals a little earlier.

Me & Boba Fett

Matt, Kira, & I with Boba Fett

There was good entertainment in the waiting areas prior to the corrals opening.

After our picture with Boba Fett, we headed to the Corrals. Becky & I were in Corral A, Matt & Kira were in Corral C. So we all used the porta potties, wished each other well, and off to our corrals. Rudy, Carrisa, and some other dude entertained us for a little while.

Then some Storm Troopers gave us some orders, then it was time to hit the road. I great Disney fashion, each corral starts with fireworks.

This, however, was my first 10K at Disney, and I was disappointed in the level of fireworks for this race. The half marathon fireworks were far better!

Here is the map of the course for the 10K. We started at Magic Kingdom and ended in the Epcot parking lot.

As I said earlier, I was going to go all out for this race. My initial goal was to run a sub 50 minute race. For the first 3 miles I was on pace for doing that. Then it started to warm up and I knew I was not going to keep up that pace. My second goal was to best my best 10K time in a half marathon, which was 52:49. Mission Accomplished with a 51:57! So, as you can see in the pictures below, which you should contrast later to my pictures in the half marathon post, I was killing myself in this race. But it was worth it for the PR! There were a lot of character stops on the course, including a great showing from the 501st Legion; however, since I was going for a PR I did not make any stops. I saved that for the half marathon.

When it was done, I had my PR, not the sub-50 that I wanted, but I will gladly take a new PR. I enjoyed the course. That was the first time I had ever got the opportunity to start in Magic Kingdom and finish at Epcot. Miles 2 and 3 were a little boring, so hopefully in years to come, they will add some entertainment there, but other than that, I enjoyed the route.

In the finish area, they once again had the characters available to take pictures with. Becky stuck around and waited for me to finish, and we took in the character photos together.

BB-8

Captain Phasma

Becky & I with Captain Phasma

Kylo Ren

Boba Fett

Darth Vader

Boba Fett arresting me

The spoils are always good after a RunDisney event. Here is to another completed race.

We have great fashion sense, I guess!

Thanks to my “0.0 Someone Has To Take The Pictures” for capture this picture of running friends!

Oh, and for those wondering…. Yes, there was a post race cupcake in the parks that day!

Well we spent most of the day post race at Magic Kingdom. Then it was early to bed again to get ready for the Star Wars Dark Side Half Marathon the next morning. That recap should be available soon.

Let the excitement over the 2016 Disneyland Half Marathon begin! You know that we’re close to race weekend when the event guide and corrals go live! On Thursday, runDisney put up the corrals and event guide. So, let’s take a look.

For the first time, there will be no hard copy of the event guide for a runDisney event. So, everything is digital. To view the entire guide, click here. I really like the format of this event guide. I think that, because they aren’t having to print it out for race participants, they got much better graphics. I love it! Let’s look at some of the interesting point of the guide.

Since this is a digital guide, the table of contents is interactive. This is not the previous digital publications that were merely a PDF file of the printed guide. This guide allows you to bounce back and…

MLB.com's Carrie Muskat has been covering Major League Baseball since 1981 and is the author of "Banks to Sandberg to Grace: Five Decades of Love and Frustration with the Cubs." You can follow her on Twitter @CarrieMuskat. Here, she blogs about the Cubs.